


Hair Day

by MindfulWrath



Category: Campaign (Podcast), Campaign: Skyjacks (Podcast)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Burza Nyt, Skyjacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25638778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulWrath/pseuds/MindfulWrath
Summary: Jonnit gets a new hairstyle on the way to Burza Nyt. Dref dislikes being perceived.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	Hair Day

**Author's Note:**

> Hello naughty children I have arrived in your fandom, feel free to get comfy while I get my eye in

There was a knock at Dref's office door. He glanced up at the Captain, tucked away in the corner in his most inanimate state. Dref plucked a divine thread marked _Liven Up_ and called, "Come in!"

Before the _n_ had hit the door, Jonnit had slipped in through it. He eased it shut behind him, twirled on his heel, and waved.

"Hi, Dref!" he said. "Are you—oh, sorry, are you busy right now? If you're busy, I can come back later, or. . . ."

"As b-busy as I ever am," said Dref. "Should I assume Gable and Travis are on th-the way??"

"No?" said Jonnit. "Why, are you expecting them?"

Irregular. Unprecedented. Cause for concern. Dref turned his full attention on Jonnit.

"Jonnit, what e-e-exactly is, mm, the _nature_ of this, ah, visit, right now?"

"Um, well, so I was thinking," Jonnit said, shifting from foot to foot and looking around the ceiling like he'd lost a moth. "We're going to be trying to be all anonymous in this new place, right? So, I mean, I'm pretty distinctive-looking, what with the—"

He drew a circle around his face and head with one hand, an oval bifurcated by a bright red band.

"Ah, yes, I see," said Dref. Less concerning. "Although I-I-I don't quite see why, ah, _I_ have b-been chosen for this particular bit of assistance."

"Because you have all the chemicals and stuff!" Jonnit said, gesturing to the wall of components. "Back home, a couple of my aunties used to put this stuff in their hair that would make it all straight, like, _all_ the way straight." He pinched a tight coil of hair and pulled it out into a straight line. "Like that. I don't really remember what it was, except that they were always talking about how you just had to kind of grit your teeth and bear it—oh, and it smelled like the stuff you use to wash clothes, what's that stuff, um. . . ."

"Lye?" Dref guessed, alarmed.

"Yeah. Yeah! That was it! It worked really well, though, I mean, their hair would stay straight for, like, _ever,_ as long as they didn't get it wet. And I just think, y'know, it'll really help me blend in and—and not look like Jonnit. You know?"

"I _do_ have lye," Dref mused, tapping his chin. "I don't know if—well. If you're c-c-certain that it's what you want, then I'll do what I can to facilitate the process."

"Awesome! Thanks, Dref, you're the best."

Jonnit tossed himself up onto the examination table and leaned back on his hands.

"Wh— _now?"_ said Dref.

"Yeah, when else? It takes like a really long time, we're gonna have to start now if we're gonna be done by the time we get to the town."

"City," said Dref. He went to his cabinet and poked around for the jar of lye. "Burza Nyt is as much a t-t- _town_ as the sea is a puddle."

"Yeah yeah, you knew what I meant. You don't always have to be the semantics guy."

"I do always have to be _the semantics guy._ Nobody e-else is going to be _the_ _s_ _emantics guy."_

"Maybe we don't need a semantics guy."

Dref sputtered. Jonnit laughed and chucked him on the shoulder.

"Ah, I'm just messing with you," he said, grinning. "But hey, while we're talking about it—you know anything else about this place? What's it called, Bougie Niche?"

 _"Burza Nyt,"_ said Dref. "And this, mm, treatment your aunts did—was it more of a-a-a-a paste, or a more, ah, creamy sort of consistency, or. . . ?"

Jonnit waggled a hand and squinted one eye. _"Ehh._ I think it was more of like a paste. There was some other stuff in it, too, like some kind of fruit I think? But I don't remember what it was. You really have to kind of squish it in there so it gets on everything, but you don't want it to drip. I can do that part, though, you don't have to do that part."

Nodding, Dref took the lye to his workspace. He combined two parts lye and one part water in a small dish and mixed it until it was a paste. He showed it to Jonnit, who said it looked too thin. A little more lye got it to the correct consistency, so Dref made a larger batch with two-point-two parts lye to one part water. He handed it over to Jonnit, not without apprehension, and Jonnit set to working the concoction into his hair. Dref started an internal count.

"Dref, um," Jonnit said, after just two minutes. "It's, like, really burning. Is it—do you think it's supposed to do that?"

"I would have n-no way of knowing that," said Dref. "Presumably this would be the, mm, grit-your-teeth aspect your a-a-aunts mentioned to you."

"Yeah, but I didn't think it would be _that_ bad!"

"If you would like to rinse—"

"No. No! I'm okay, I can take it! I can _take_ it. It's just a little burning."

"Mm," said Dref. He busied himself double-checking the Captain for residual wounds from the fight aboard the _Civility_ _,_ although he made sure there was a damp cloth immediately available for Jonnit.

"Okay," Jonnit said, shaky and sweaty, wiping the last of the lye off his hands. His palms were red and blotchy. "Okay! So now it's just, um, a couple of hours. I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure I'll get used to it."

"Would you like to remain here while you wait, in case something goes w-w-wrong?"

"Wrong?" Jonnit squeaked. "What—what could go wrong? Dref, is there something you didn't tell me? Is there some way this is going to go wrong?"

"No! No, that isn't what I i-i-intended to im-imply, just that—if, for example, some of the, ah, substance were to, let's just take a w-wild stab and say, mm, get into your eye—any, hahah, of your, mm, eyes—that would be a, ah, somewhat p-p-pressing medical issue, hm? And, perhaps, if you would want someone present to a-assist with the, ah, removal, afterwards, even if n-n-nothing goes wrong."

Jonnit sagged, pressing a hand to his chest. "Jeez, man, don't scare me like that, okay?But—yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Yeah. I think I'll just wait here—if that's okay with you, I mean!"

"It is fine, Jonnit," said Dref.

Jonnit kicked his feet. Dref got back to his checking, not because it needed to be done, but because he needed something to do. He tugged on the Captain's threads to make sure they were all intact—propping up the feet, very natural; a roll of the neck, a little uncanny; a wink, and _why_ did that keep happening, _what_ was pulling on that damn thread? It must have gotten tangled up somewhere, he really had to pick through and find it one of these days. . . .

"Hey, Dref?"

"Mm?"

"How old are you, anyway?"

Dref blinked, turned away from the Captain. "How— _old_ am I?"

"Yeah. Well, because Gable was saying something about you acting way older than you actually are, and so, like, I was wondering how old you actually _are,_ actually."

"I don't see that it m-matters terribly much."

"I mean, probably not. And if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine! I'm just kind of curious, you know?"

"Mm," said Dref. An innocent question, he decided. A loaded question, but an innocent one. "In that case: I'm n-n-nineteen."

 _"Nineteen?"_ Jonnit cried.

"Shh—keep your voice down!"

"No way! You're _nineteen?_ That's only like—you're almost _my_ age!"

"I most certainly am _not,"_ Dref scoffed.

"You are, though! Because I'm fifteen, and you're only four years older than me, so we're almost the same age. Dref—this is great! There's nobody else our age on the ship, everybody's either super old or one of the sickly orphans."

"Mm, yes, well, difficult to tell how old the sickly orphans actually, mm, _are,_ their various m-m-medical conditions and poor early-life nutrition has certainly stunted their growth in more than one c-case. And—but— _and,_ Jonnit, _four years_ is not an _almost_ sort of t-time frame, when it comes to, mm, this sort of age difference."

 _"Dref,_ come on. You're just getting all defensive because you don't want anybody to know how young you are, because you're scared they'll treat you like a kid."

"I—pff—haah—whh—I most certainly am _not!"_

"You're turning all red."

 _"You're_ turning all red!"

The knowing, kindly smile on Jonnit's face smashed like a glass egg. "I _am?_ Is it bad? How bad is it? Is it gonna leave a scar? Is the scar at least gonna look _cool?_ Ohhh, Dref, I can't have an ugly scar, I'm too _young_ to have an ugly scar!"

"Jonnit—Jonnit, calm—Jonnit, that's not what I—j-j-just calm _down_ , would you?"

"But if I'm turning _red—"_

"You're not t-turning red."

"But you _said—"_

"F-f-f-forget what I said. Listen to what I'm s-saying!"

Jonnit quieted, gritted teeth and panicked eyes. Dref took a deep breath. On consideration, he also took Jonnit by the shoulders.

"You are f-fine," he said. "No redness or inf-f-flammation that I can see. You are p-perfectly f-fine."

"O- _kay,"_ said Jonnit, dubious. "If you say so. If you're saying so right now."

"I am."

"O- _kay. . . ."_

"Trust me. I'm, mm, a doctor. Hahah."

The Captain winked.

"Hey, um, speaking of . . . did you always, like, know?" Jonnit asked. "That you wanted to be a doctor? Or did it kind of—I don't know, just kind of _happen_ to you?"

"I—well," said Dref. An innocent question, and an incredibly dangerous one. He took his hands off Jonnit's shoulders, found something else to occupy them with. Clean up the lye. That would do. "I knew I wanted to, mm, understand the world, and how it worked. I was always s-somewhat fascinated with, shall we say, the, mm, morbid side of life."

"But you didn't know for sure that you wanted to be a doctor."

"No, not for certain. Why?"

"Well—so you remember how I told you about that vision I had? Of me being a captain someday? It's like, I can't explain it, but I know that was true."

A fascinating turn of phrase, a remarkable turn of phrase, but Jonnit gave him no time to remark on it.

"I just . . . don't know how I'm going to get there," he concluded, draped heavy on his bones. "I have no idea how to get there."

Dref took the time to find his words. Now was not the time to speak incautiously.

"If, as you say, your vision was, mm, _true,"_ he said, "then, presumably, it will come to pass, r-regardless of what, precisely, you _do."_

Jonnit raised his head. Dref waved a hand.

"Because, you see, it _must_ happen," he went on. "It is your fate. You could—just to take a completely implausible and frankly r-ridiculous scenario—you could, mm, leap from the bow of the ship right now, and—because your vision was presented by Fate—then Fate would be f-forced to find some way to save you, such that, mm, said vision would, in fact, come to pass. _A-a-although_ I wouldn't recommend it!"

"Yeah," Jonnit said, nodding slowly. "Yeah, y'know, that actually makes sense!"

"Well you don't have to sound so _surprised."_

"No, no, because like—it _has_ to happen. It has to happen because I _saw_ it, and I know it's going to. So I don't have to worry about it. _Anything_ I do is going to get me there!"

"Yes, yes, precisely!"

Jonnit pressed a hand to his chest and blew out a breath bigger than his whole body.

"What a _relief!_ Dref, you have no idea how much this has been stressing me out, man, I've been lying awake at night for days."

 _"Days,"_ said Dref. Don't laugh. At fifteen, a few days of sleepless nights was probably the most he'd ever had. "Then, mm, I am glad to have s-spared you further in-nsomnia."

"Y'know what, Dref, you might be a lot younger than Gable and Travis, but I think you're a lot smarter."

"And you, Jonnit, are c-certainly wiser, b-b-because unlike Gable and Travis, who have had, mm, an as-yet indeterminate a-amount of time to gain wisdom, you have figured out the extremely p-p-powerful skill of asking for help."

Jonnit laughed and chucked Dref on the shoulder again. It was staring to hurt.

"Yeah, we're really the brains of this group, aren't we?" Jonnit said.

"Oh dear God," said Dref, "we are."


End file.
